What Does Weirdness Have To Do With Creativity? Scientists Explain

Creativity is defined as “the ability to make new things” or think of “new ideas.” The ability to do both these requires original thinking and drawing from past experiences, abilities, and skills.

Creativity is not reserved for the artists; the painters, the authors, and the writers. Everyone is creative in their own way. As Tyler Tervooren explains “Creativity is all around us but, for so many, it remains invisible—hidden in plain sight—because we’ve conditioned ourselves to look for it in only a few places. There are so many places you can draw new ideas from to improve your work if you look just a little harder. “

But why are some people more creative than others? The concept of latent inhibition is used to explain this.

Latent Inhibition and why we are creative

“Latent inhibition is a term used to explain how our observation of a familiar stimulus (e.g. something we have seen or heard before) takes longer to acquire meaning than a new stimulus” – Low Latent Inhibition.

For example, consider how we observe a doorknob. We know it’s purpose. It’s there to help us open a door. We don’t give it much notice. This makes sense as we see it every day. We open a lot of doors every day. Consequently, our brains apply the same rules to all doorknobs (and all new stimuli). If we were to analyze each and every doorknob, looking at finer details and questioning why it was chosen, our brains would be overloaded. Our brains would not be able to cope.

Nick Darlington

Nick is a Multipotentialite, traveler, aspiring entrepreneur, freelance writer, and blogger. He has his own blog where he helps people live a happier, more fulfilled life. He can be contacted directly at [email protected] or via social media channels.